The City of the Cetra
by roisaber
Summary: Aerith dreams a dream sent to her by the Planet on the penultimate day of her life.


Aerith shivered, and pulled the behemoth skin duvet more tightly to her chest. It stank of old dust and rot, but she was thankful for it anyway; even with a small fire materia giving off warmth, she could still see her breath in the darkness. She couldn't sleep. An ominous feeling of dread hung just beyond the edge of somnolence, and for the first time since she was a little girl, Aerith found that she was afraid of the darkness.

Two men were still chasing her and both were corrupted with Jenova cells. The second was a merciless angel of darkness, trying to turn the Planet into an egg that would give birth to an exiled alien tyrant. The first… it was a little harder to be certain about that one. At times he seemed so kind, but there was no denying that in some way, he was just as much a slave of Jenova as Sephiroth was. Aerith had had no choice but to flee – for his safety, as much as for hers. She gave a quiet prayer that she was far enough ahead of both of them to complete her mission before something terrible happened.

The Forgotten Capital. The ancient city of the Cetra, slowly decaying in the icy winds of the hyperborean north. Aerith had chosen a house at random and made camp for the night. She was profoundly exhausted but she had to stay ahead of her two pursuers, one of darkness, and the other – not quite of light. She shivered and rifled through her nearly empty pack. Naturally, all the food in the city had long since decayed into dust, so she finished off the very last of the rations she'd bought at Bone Village. One way or another, it was all going to be over soon.

"As soon as it gets light, I'll explore the city," Aerith whispered to the Planet.

Here, at the extreme edge of the world, the Planet didn't answer. Aerith could feel its agony.

The cold stars made their slow journey across their circuits in the sky. Several times, Aerith almost fell asleep but each time she jerked away, moved by fright and the tinkle of distant bells. Suddenly, she found herself at the edge of a precipice and she fell. She fell forever.

A giant snail, fully the size of a house, crawled out of the sea at the edge of Cetrabad.

"Priestess, priestess!" shouted a child. "Starsnail!"

The Starsnails could not speak, but they possessed a profound wisdom older than human speech. They instinctively knew when they were going to die, and they made a pilgrimage to Cetrabad to be sent back to the Planet with a ritual that only a Cetra priestess could perform. Sure enough, a tired-looking middle aged woman came out one of the houses and made her way down a bustling noonday street. The other Cetra silently made a path for her, and she walked through the parted crowd with ease.

She appraised the Starsnail lurching up from the sea. It was young; too young to have made its way to Cetrabad for the final sending. That was happening more and more these days, and the Priestess could understand nothing but that it was a dark omen. Aerith watched the scene, disembodied and yet somehow hearing and seeing everything. Aerith could even hear the Priestess' thoughts.

"Too soon, it's too soon for you," the haggard shamaness croaked, knowing that it was a lie.

The other Cetra crowded around, now, keeping a respectful distance but unable to tear their eyes from the scene. The Starsnail was too young to be dying but the raw fact was unmistakable. Its iridescent shell was pockmarked by dark splotches. Its eyes, which should be glowing faintly yellow, had all but been extinguished. The creature had lived perhaps a third of its proper lifespan but already it was here to beseech the aid of a Cetra Priestess. It was happening all too often these days.

"What's your name?" the Priestess asked quietly, knowing she would receive no intelligible answer. Instead, the Starsnail shuffled forward, touching its shell to her outstretched hand.

The Priestess yelped and jerked away. The shell _burned_, and the woman felt a knot in the pit of her stomach as she internally consulted her years of learning Starsnail lore. As far as she knew, this was unprecedented, and her own master had returned to the Planet two years previously and was no longer available to advise her. At least, the Priestess shook her head.

"Tell my husband to prepare my tools," she hissed at the town cobbler who had materialized next to her. "There is nothing I can do – this one has come for his sending."

The cobbler nodded and nearly ran to the Priestess' home, office, and apothecary.

Perhaps her husband… no. He was an expert at mixing salves, potions, and elixirs to cure everything from childhood fever to tumors, but Starsnails were outside his area of expertise. Without knowing how, the Priestess intuited that she was seeing something new. _Disease_. Starsnails would die of old age, yes, after a thousand years on the Planet or more. They could even suffer fatal injuries. Once, she'd seen her master send a Starsnail that had been crippled in a tsunami, its shell shattered open by a giant boulder carried by the wave like a fist. But never, never had she seen or heard of anything like this. It was as though the Starsnail was burning up from the inside.

The relationship between the Cetra and the Starsnails had always been symbiotic. The Cetra eased them in their final distress, and the Snails left behind their shells, which could be fashioned into homes or carts or tools or numerous other useful things. No one knew exactly what the Starsnails thought about the arrangement but for the Cetra it was ideal. The Starsnails were solid proof that when the Cetra provided for the Planet, the Planet would provide for them in return.

In an hour, everything was ready. Even as the Cetra watched pieces of the Starsnail's shell cracked off and fell, exposing the vulnerable flesh underneath. Carefully, the Priestess approached the great creature and set down a bowl of soporifics specially formulated over the centuries. The Starsnail sucked them greedily through its proboscis. Without waiting for them to take effect, the Priestess began her choreographed routine, handed down since ancient times, since the great capital of Cetrabad had first been founded.

"Up, down, up, right, down, up, left, step…" the Priestess mumbled the song her master had taught her to make certain she got the motions right.

The dance only took ten minutes, but the Priestess was covered in sweat by the time it was finished. She wasn't getting any younger, after all; soon it would be time to train a promising village girl to be her pupil. Gently, she guided the creature off the road with the sparkling end of her magician's staff. It followed her without protest. The soporific would already be hard at work in the creature's mind, dulling some of the agony and slowly leading it across the thin membrane between life and death.

Aerith awoke with a start. Through the window, she could see thin fingers of dawn reaching down and bathing the forgotten capital in chilly morning light.

"That dream…"

Her voice cracked with thirst and days of disuse.

Aerith reached up to caress the useless materia woven into her hair. Were those her ancestors? Had she at last caught a glimpse of their lives, here in the decaying ruins of their greatest city? No – she didn't have time to waste feeling sorry for herself. Two angels, one of darkness and one of twilight, were still hot on her heels and one of them might appear at any time. She resolved to search the city for the Cetra's house of worship – perhaps there, she might discover a way to make her useless materia shine.


End file.
